If Bauer's arm doesn't fall off (a very distinct possibility assuming he's now an Indian), this is a steal for Cleveland. A front of the rotation stud plus two interesting relievers and (if nothing else) a warm outfield body for one year of Choo (who's gone anyway) and crap (Anderson and Sipp). And Donald, too. He's not crap, but he's close.

Shapiro and Antonetti, I won't admit this much, but on this deal at least, I you.

I like Shaw for Sipp. He has had a good start to his career. Really helped me down the stretch in 2011 on my fantasy dynasty team. He was a great SP/RP flex option.

What's not to like? One year of Choo for a young starter with FOR potential, an outfielder with speed and range, and a couple of relievers. The acquisition of Aviles left Donald without a role, not that a guy who hit .202 at age 27 had a role anyway. We don't need Sipp with the acquisition of Albers, and there's also Hagadone pitching well in winter ball. And even if Lars Anderson had a chance of making the team, it's gone now with the signing of Reynolds.

So it looks like we got a lot for one year of Choo and three guys we have absolutely no use for.

Sure, Bauer is a risk, but that's what teams like the Indians have to do to get quality starting pitching. At least this time they didn't give up Drew Pomeranz.

I can't believe Arizona got fair value. Either they see something in Gregorius that nobody else does, or they know something about Bauer that we don't. Like maybe the Phillies knew something about Jason Knapp that we didn't.

It looks like everybody got what they wanted. I don't know about the Reds, though, as they'll only have Choo for one year. The other two teams each got young talent with upside at positions of dire need. The Reds got a one-year stopgap in Choo and a fringe major leaguer in Donald.

This is the best first impression I've had of an Indians move in a long time. Quite a haul for 1 year of Choo, a few terrible players, and $3.5 million (Larry? Is that you?!). Bauer is a potential ace not far from being major league ready. Stubbs is the right handed hitter the Indians have sorely needed, and I can see him having a big bounceback in a new setting. PLUS 2 guys for the pen! Nicely done Shaponetti and Dolan.

Credit where credit is due, seems like a solid return for a guy bolting in a year. But now can we please stop spending short term money on the Reynoldses and Swishers of the world? Put that extra cash into a long term offer to Kipnis or something.

"Well then I guess there's only one thing left to do...win the whole, f***in', thing."- Jake Taylor

Brilliant return! Bauer is going to be a stud and isn't 22 until next month.Bryan Shaw ain't exactly junk either. A young reliever who has had 2 good first seasons in the Majors (walks are a bit high though) and Albers had a good season in 2012.

Well done Antonetti!Now work some magic with A-Cab

"There is but one thing of real value: to cultivate truth and justice and to live without anger in the midst of lying and unjust men"

Not trying to sound too greedy in light of such a great trade, but I hope this doesn't make it less likely that Cabrera is dealt, too. He's still by far our best trading chip, and if we were able to essentially land Bauer for Choo (when it was widely assumed that it would take Cabrera to get Bauer instead), then we've got a chance yet to really add maybe two more impact pieces. Great move, but they still need to do some work.

So, Stubbs clearly plays center. He's the best in baseball there. Brantley in left. If they don't land Swisher, who is playing right field? Or does this mean they're pretty convinced they're going to land Swisher?

Dellucci TailGator wrote:So, Stubbs clearly plays center. He's the best in baseball there. Brantley in left. If they don't land Swisher, who is playing right field? Or does this mean they're pretty convinced they're going to land Swisher?

I think it means they're gonna go with the full court press to get Swisher or one of the fall back options, like a Cody Ross type guy.

Prosecutor wrote:I can't believe Arizona got fair value. Either they see something in Gregorius that nobody else does, or they know something about Bauer that we don't. Like maybe the Phillies knew something about Jason Knapp that we didn't.

I read a quote that AZ's GM likens Gregorius to a young Derek Jeter. I think he believes that he snowed us all by getting this kid. Time will tell.

Dealing Sipp and cutting Raffy Perez loose has made our once strong lefty bullpen situation much less so. I'm assuming that the organization believes that Hagadone is ready to take one of those slots, as long as he stops punching walls.

What other southpaws do we have for the pen this year? Barnes? Huff?

Seems as if many folks think Cleveland made out well in this deal, although they do mention that Bauer's personality collided with folks in Arizona.

...And so Antonetti conceived a deal around Bauer, the former UCLA star who stormed through the minor leagues, arrived in Arizona to great fanfare and found himself alienated by teammates and management because of what some would call quirkiness and others stubbornness. Certainly Bauer is unique, from his mega-long toss to his crow-hop warm-up pitches. He is also a pitching savant, eager to learn everything about the game's mechanics and perfect his craft while doing so. Bauer pitched hurt last year, was mediocre in the big leagues, beefed with Montero and soon landed in the Diamondbacks' doghouse, which, admittedly, has included Upton, no slouch himself.

Boddy owns Driveline Mechanics Research in Seattle, WA and really knows his shit.

Best part in the entire article for me:

His deceleration pattern is extremely efficient: He rotates his throwing shoulder forward into the target significantly farther than most pitchers. This pattern allows force to be applied to the baseball in increasingly straighter lines, which is naturally more efficient and less injurious on the elbow and shoulder.

A God Damn dead man would understand that if a minor league bus in any city took a real sharp right turn, a Zack McCalister would likely fall out. - Lead Pipe

I guess I break the streak of positive posters. Maybe it's the Clevelander in me, but I just get visions of Jason Knapp breaking down with significant arm injuries when I think about Bauer. As for Stubbs, I get voices in my head that are repeatedly saying "a SWING and a miss". I'm just not buying it right now.

Last edited by volunteerbrownie on Wed Dec 12, 2012 1:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Boddy owns Driveline Mechanics Research in Seattle, WA and really knows his shit.

Best part in the entire article for me:

His deceleration pattern is extremely efficient: He rotates his throwing shoulder forward into the target significantly farther than most pitchers. This pattern allows force to be applied to the baseball in increasingly straighter lines, which is naturally more efficient and less injurious on the elbow and shoulder.

Holy shit! Someone who "gets it".

Especially the Strasburg part. Dude is the picture child for arm injuries. Not really sure what is so difficult about pitching mechanics, but these guys sure like to alter them. The proper mechanics have been around for years, but everyone wants to be smarter than the previous guy, so they tinker. Deceleration is such a simple concept, yet you still have tons of guys "stopping" instead of decelerating. I always thought Cliff Lee has the best deceleration in the game.

bac5665 wrote:All I'll say is that I really hope Bauer pans out. After Kipnis, Santana and LaPorta all failing to be playas, I'm losing my ability to be excited about deals like this.

On paper, looks great. Now we just need it to pan out.

Why are you lumping Kipnis and Santana in with LaPorta? The former two are pretty solid players. They have flaws but they're probably going to get better.

Because Kipnis and Santana, like LaPorta, were supposed to be elite. Not just solid. None of them has lived up to expectations. LaPorta, is, obviously, the biggest disappointment, but his horrific failure doesn't erase Kipnis and Santana's smaller failure.

Didn't she just become engaged to Christian Ponder of the Vikings? Or does she have a different beau for each sport?

Galley Boys are slop on top of a so-so burger and a bun you coulde get from a Covneninet food mart generic pack. They the Antoine Joubert of burgers; soft, sloppy, oozing grease and cheap sauce and extremely overrated by a biased fan base. Proof that if you throw enough cheap sauce shit on a burger you still can't overcome the lame burger. -JB

Besides shaking up last season's meh lineup, Shaponetti gets three stars for simply doing something. It shows even peripheral fans that at least the effort is being made to improve the team. That, quite frankly, hasn't been evident at any time since the trade for Ubaldo. It seems like yesterday, but that was a whole year-and-a-half ago.

volunteerbrownie wrote:I guess I break the streak of positive posters. Maybe it's the Clevelander in me, but I just get visions of Jason Knapp breaking down with significant arm injuries when I think about Bauer. As for Stubbs, I get voices in my head that are repeatedly saying "a SWING and a miss". I'm just not buying it right now.

But the thing is we only lost Choo, who has just become a semi-productive major leaguer past his prime, who won't be worth his new salary, so it's a no risk situation with a lot of upside. I still hate just about everything about this team, but this wasn't a bad move.

Didn't she just become engaged to Christian Ponder of the Vikings? Or does she have a different beau for each sport?

Honestly, had no idea. I live down in Cincy and heard it on the radio a while back.

However, I checked Wikipedia, and you are correct, so disregard. Serves me right for listening to anything those loudmouths have to say.

I don't even know why I know this, but I'm pretty sure Ponder and Steele just started dating recently (like after the NFL season started). So even though they're engaged now, it's very possible she was with Stubbs during the baseball season.

Stubbs has a fair amount of value. He's three seasons removed from being four wins above replacement player and was 2.9 WAR in 2011. There's no doubt that he has his shortcomings as a player, low average and high strikeouts, but he has a very nice blend of speed and defense that we haven't had in quite a while. He's got moderate power and should hit 15-20 HR if he gets a full season worth of at bats. His .821 OPS against LHP is pretty nice to have and I wonder if the Indians are looking at him as a platoon player with a free agent on the market who hits RHP.

Ryan Sweeney fits the mold. A pretty decent defensive OF with a .293/.347/.402/.749 split against RHP (a pathetic .225/.298/.281/.579 v. LHP). Scott Podsednik could be another one with a .282/.342/.389/.731 split v. RHP.

I know we hate platoons around here, but if we can utilize speed, defense, occasional pop, and piecemeal a 1.5-2 win OFer with Stubbs and another guy, that's not a bad thing.

A God Damn dead man would understand that if a minor league bus in any city took a real sharp right turn, a Zack McCalister would likely fall out. - Lead Pipe

bac5665 wrote:All I'll say is that I really hope Bauer pans out. After Kipnis, Santana and LaPorta all failing to be playas, I'm losing my ability to be excited about deals like this.

On paper, looks great. Now we just need it to pan out.

Why are you lumping Kipnis and Santana in with LaPorta? The former two are pretty solid players. They have flaws but they're probably going to get better.

Because Kipnis and Santana, like LaPorta, were supposed to be elite. Not just solid. None of them has lived up to expectations. LaPorta, is, obviously, the biggest disappointment, but his horrific failure doesn't erase Kipnis and Santana's smaller failure.

After one full season in the bigs we can deem Kipnis a failure.

Santana is no scrub either. But yes, he is a failure after two seasons.

FWIW, just watched Mitch Williams on the MLB Network wear out Bauer for Bauer's unwillingness to accept coaching and his poor mechanics.

Now, Mitch was a little stubborn in his day as well, but this trade isn't as much of a homerun as many are making it out to be. IF Bauer is willing to make changes for the better, and that's a BIG IF the more and more I hear about him, he could be a gamechanger. But, there appears to be legitimate questions about make-up and coachability

bac5665 wrote:All I'll say is that I really hope Bauer pans out. After Kipnis, Santana and LaPorta all failing to be playas, I'm losing my ability to be excited about deals like this.

On paper, looks great. Now we just need it to pan out.

Why are you lumping Kipnis and Santana in with LaPorta? The former two are pretty solid players. They have flaws but they're probably going to get better.

Because Kipnis and Santana, like LaPorta, were supposed to be elite. Not just solid. None of them has lived up to expectations. LaPorta, is, obviously, the biggest disappointment, but his horrific failure doesn't erase Kipnis and Santana's smaller failure.

Have you considered the possibility that the actual problem might just be your expectations?

volunteerbrownie wrote:FWIW, just watched Mitch Williams on the MLB Network wear out Bauer for Bauer's unwillingness to accept coaching and his poor mechanics.

Now, Mitch was a little stubborn in his day as well, but this trade isn't as much of a homerun as many are making it out to be. IF Bauer is willing to make changes for the better, and that's a BIG IF the more and more I hear about him, he could be a gamechanger. But, there appears to be legitimate questions about make-up and coachability

I have read and listened to comments like this all day but I have to say after reading up on why he doesn't seem to want to change I can't blame him. Look in the last 20 years MLB pitching coaches and organizations have limited throwing on the side and have enacted all sort of pitch count limits allegedly to keep pitchers from getting hurt. And guess what, it hasn't helped at all. If you read a bit about his training regiment you'll see that he is the first of a whole wave of young pitchers who are trying a different approach. All that I know is pitchers used to by able to pitch double headers without getting injured and it seems the more they are babied the more susceptible they've come to arm troubles. Just a wild guess but I would say that near 50% of active pitchers have had TJ surgery. Obviously something is not working when surgery is the norm rather than exception. Oh by the way CA came out today and said they're not going to mess with his pregame routine, so maybe it won't matter how hard headed he is on the subject.

"Strangers passing in the street, by chances two separate glances meet and I am you and what I see his me."

Regarding Kyle Boddy, I will admit not reading up on his pitching stuff, but that's because he's a Dr. Chris Yeager disciple on the hitting side, and I've pointed out the flaws in Yeager's stuff many times on other sites. I have a hard time reading what he has to say about pitching if thinks Yeager's stuff is top-notch, but who knows maybe he's got a better handle on the pitching side. Nice guy, just needs to get rid of his Yeager DVDs.

I've been looking at some Drew Stubbs home runs and mechanics are his problem. I don't know his history other than he is a freakishly good athlete considering he can rip off stolen bases on a 6'4" frame. So far what I am seeing in Stubbs swing is that he seems to be taking the bottom hand down to the ball. There just isn't time in a major league batters box to line up a pitch and swing your arms as fast as you can. Most of the home runs are hit way out in front, which means his timing window has to be absolutely perfect to jack one. As I review the homers on MLB, several of them are line drives that barely clear the fence. So far very few towering Ryan Braun type homers that you typically see in most power hitters.

A change of scenery might help a little so we'll see. His swing reminds me of what I see a lot of guys teaching down at the batting cages. Hands to the ball moving the arms as fast as possible. I'll see if I can make a clip later.

volunteerbrownie wrote:FWIW, just watched Mitch Williams on the MLB Network wear out Bauer for Bauer's unwillingness to accept coaching and his poor mechanics.

Now, Mitch was a little stubborn in his day as well, but this trade isn't as much of a homerun as many are making it out to be. IF Bauer is willing to make changes for the better, and that's a BIG IF the more and more I hear about him, he could be a gamechanger. But, there appears to be legitimate questions about make-up and coachability

Isn't this why they got such perceived quality in the first place?

Cause if Bauer had perfect mechanics, make-up and attitude to go along with the stuff, he wouldn't be going anywhere.

The Tribe needs some talent. Rolling the dice with a loose cannon is an OK gamble im my book. Hell, it's a longshot to get a prospect to blossom, him being kind of a dick is minor.

And if you can PLAY you can PLAY. If he's a true playa he won't need the coaching.